only you can set my heart on fire
by Regency
Summary: Set post-BJB. Mark has been watching Bridget all night, but he could never stand to just watch her.


Author: Regency

Title: only you can set my heart on fire

Pairing: Bridget/Mark

Series: Part of the _Still Falling for You_ continuity

Warnings: none

Contains: Mark being utterly gone for his wife, the heart eyes can be seen from space

Summary: Set post-BJB. Mark has been watching Bridget all night, but he could never stand to just watch her.

Prompt: the kiss meme 😱 #15, mark & bridget: a kiss because I have literally been watching you all night and I can't take anymore

Author's Notes: Come flail with me on Tumblr at sententiousandbellicose! [I'm so behind on my prompts because the world is on fire, but I'm trying to write more regularly. Here's hoping.]

Disclaimer: I don't own any characters, settings, or plot elements recognizable as being from any incarnation of the Bridget Jones series by Helen Fielding. They are the property of their actors, producers, writers, and studios, not me. No copyright infringement was intended and no money was made in the writing or distribution of this story. It was good, clean fun.

* * *

Mark forgot what he was about to say mid-sentence. He'd just noticed his wife.

Bridget was cavorting with the children on the dance floor. Someone had supplied her with a flower crown festooned in ribbons, which she'd gamely donned like some obsequious fey queen. She'd even found another pair of fairy wings. _Probably from one of the children_.

She picked up William and spun around with him in one arm and their goddaughter in the other while the children screamed in delight. Bridget shouted with laughter. The other kids flocked to her begging to have their turn to be spun. She passed off her two young burdens to Sharon and Jude to play the interactive maypole for all her small charges. They whooped in her arms and tipped off on bandy, dizzy legs; she carried them all with tireless grace until she was panting and red in the face. _I should help her. Relieve her of the strain._ Be close to her. That was what he really wanted to do. Two years of marriage and he still forgot how to speak in complete sentences when she smiled.

"That's that, then," Giles jibed from his side. "We've lost him. He's got Bridget Vision." He chuckled for the benefit of their colleagues who were yet to be accustomed to seeing stoic, implacable Mark go addle-minded over a woman yet infamous for the Hard News Bare Arses On-Air incident.

"Shall we leave him to it?" asked another of their associates, Andrew something or other, plainly uncertain as only a subordinate could be.

"I don't think we have a choice."

"Hmm?" Mark supplied in complete distraction. Bridget had resumed possession of their son and they were dancing slowly while Bridget sang to him. William rubbed his tired eyes and nodded off in her arms. _Lucky boy._

Giles patted him congenially on the shoulder. "Nothing, mate. Go on your way." He led the remainder of their colleagues closer to the open bar. Mark didn't ask after them.

Bridget had caught sight of him watching her and raised an eyebrow in question. He nodded toward the archway leading out into the garden. The same garden intended for a very different couple than they were back then. _Here I am, married to the right woman this time._

Five minutes later, Bridget met him out at the hedgerows, without their son.

"Tom took him for a while. It's probably a relief to deal with a toddler that doesn't cry every time he changes hands."

Mark tutted softly in sympathy for their friend. "Elisa will adapt. It's all still new to her."

She took his hand and laced her fingers through his as they strolled along the flagstone walk that wrapped around the hotel. He smiled in the dusk.

"I know. It was very good of you to help them out with the adoption."

"I knew some of the placement officials in Bogotá . It was simply a matter of ensuring the adoption agency was legitimate and that the adoption was legal. Unfortunately, in Colombia as in many places, there are children who are illegally removed from their guardians. For Elisa's sake, I wanted to ensure that wasn't the case."

"Not to mention Tom's. They've been trying to adopt forever."

"And now they have. It will take time and love, but I believe it'll all work out in the end."

She squeezed his hand in solidarity. "You're very optimistic these days."

"I have a few reasons to believe that things work out eventually, if you keep at them."

"How sentimental of you."

"I'm in a sentimental mood."

"Is that why you've been watching me all night?"

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean." He fingered the ribbons trailing from the back of her crown. "You make a lovely May queen."

She yelped, "I forgot I had this on. I must look ridiculous." Bridget started removing her flowered coronet, only to wince as stems began tangling in her hair. Mark hastened to offer assistance, taking this chance to subtly bury his fingers in its familiar strands. Bridget gazed up at him while he concentrated on his task, but her attention didn't unnerve him. They tended to go into hyper-focus in proximity to each other, to the exclusion of nearly anything else. He hoped they'd feel the same way twenty years from now.

He worked her roots free from the nubs of thorns someone hadn't thought to properly remove. "There we go, I think we've got it." He lifted the crown from her head and handed it back to her.

"I think you might be better suited to royalty than I am." She coaxed him to bend down with a slightly pleading look he found impossible to resist. Grudgingly fond, he withstood Bridget arranging the crown neatly on his head till she was finished.

"Oh, I like that." She took out her mobile to snap a couple of photos of him in said crown. "Very king of the faeries."

He little doubted he'd end up on somebody's Instagram feed looking a tit, but he didn't mind if it got her to smile at him this way for the rest of the night.

"With you as queen, I suppose it can't be too bad."

She scoffed at him and cupped his cheek. "Your supply of romantic one-liners is inexhaustible."

"Give me a lifetime, I'm sure I'll start repeating myself at some point."

"I'll take that bet." She kissed him before he could muster another about gambling, probability, and love. Likely for the best as it would probably one he cribbed from Qwantum Leap or that god forsaken Pride & Prejudice mini she couldn't seem to watch enough. Better to kiss her with all the love in his heart than sully it with trite words. He loved her more than his own life. More than any life save their son's. He loved her more than words.

She melted into his arms, kicking up a leg behind her like some film heroine from Hollywood's golden age in the arms of The One. He was very glad to be her co-star.

Her lips parted from his just long enough for her to admonish him: "Less thinking, more kissing me silly."

He pulled her even closer. "As you wish."

* * *

On re-entering the hotel, Mark slipped his key card into her palm, well aware that she'd left hers on the nightstand.

She stopped him at the foot of the staircase to gift him another kiss. There was nothing clandestine in this embrace. That was the difference to that long ago night. Nothing was secret, nothing was forbidden. They were allowed to have each other, and have each other they would. _May tonight be as lucky as then._ It was about time their family of three expanded to include one more.

Mark made his escape from a tipsy Giles, again, to find Bridget overlooking the gardens in stocking feet. For a moment, the past and the present overlapped in his mind. This hotel room. This blue dress superimposed over the green of back then. The anticipation of a long-desired reunion mingling with the certainty of love. He crossed the unlit room and drew her back to his chest where she fit perfectly. It was a wonder he'd managed to give her up once when having her close felt so terribly essential. He brushed her hair aside to kissed the circle of skin revealed by the keyhole closure of her dress .

She sighed his name and turned to begin divesting him of his suit. It might have gone faster if Mark could bear to keep his hands from her waist or his lips from hers for the time it took to loosen his tie. There was little more than the light pouring in through the windows to see by, but he could have mapped her figure with his hands alone in perfect darkness.

Soon Bridget stood bared legged and hair a mess but otherwise fully clothed to his bared chest. _Somehow she's gotten the upper hand here_ , he triumphant smirk told him she'd planned it just that way. She was forever getting the better of him.

"Isn't this how we ended up married with a baby?"

"Is it?" she quipped, evenly, drawing her soft fingertips up and down his chest till he came over in a flush. "I can't remember just now, I might need you to refresh my memory, Mr. Darcy."

Bridget began to unfasten her dress with tantalizing slowness. This one bore far fewer buttons than the green one Mark hated and loved in equal measure. They both paled in comparison to her.

"I thought you'd never ask."

Mark propelled a laughing Bridget toward the glorious antique bed of their past acquaintance. It was just like old times, indeed, but somehow even better.


End file.
